SHOCKING NEWS: Tax Cuts for the Wealthy Only Help the Wealthy

Yes, yes…another day, another incredibly well-executed, painstakingly researched, critically-praised study published that just flies in the face of everything Republicans blindly promote at the urge of their billionaire overlords believe in.

Ready for the big surprise?

Tax cuts for the rich don’t help the economy. They make the rich richer and promote income inequality.

As reported by that infamous bleeding heart liberal publication The Wall Street Journal, a recent study by the non-partisan (unless you disagree with the findings, of course) Congressional Research Service found that the Republicans’ main argument for extending tax cuts for the wealthy – namely that these people are the country’s “job creators” and primary drivers of economic growth – is based on a large, heaping pile of -…well, you know.

Not that anyone seems to realize, but taxes are lower now than they have been in more than 30 years…capital gains (something that tends, by its nature, to accumulate to high income individuals) are at their lowest level in sixty-five years.

And yet…here we are…

Key Findings of the study:

the top tax rates do not have a “demonstrably significant relationship with investment”.

the correlation between economic growth and the top tax rates “is not strong,”

the most statistically significant link (between tax rates and other patterns) is between income inequality and tax cuts on the rich.

So, “income inequality”, eh? Sounds good to me, I mean if we divided up everything evenly, we’d all be poor, are you with me fellas? (HAR HAR HAR)

According to that liberal rag BusinessWeek, income equality has substantial negative impacts on the economy (surprised again?). Some of the impacts of the 5% shift in wealth over the last 30 years from the middle class to the nations 5,934 wealthiest households (a cool $650 billion, if you are interested) include:

increased vulnerability to financial crises (hey, didn’t we just have one of those?)

increased gridlock of the political system (check)

decreased investor confidence in a system that seems rigged towards the wealthy (check)

increased social instability between haves and have-nots (anyone heard of the Occupy movement?)

All of which sounds both familiar, and disheartening.

But then again, here they go, using facts to attempt to prove something that most of us know to be true. Mitt Romney’s campaign wants us all to know that they “will not be dictated by fact-checkers“. Besides, only smart people pay attention to facts. And as Rick Santorum told his fellow conservatives last weekend, “We will never have elite, smart people on our side”, especially not people who hold BOTH a law degree and MBA simultaneously…like Rick Santorum (not a joke), who is also most definitely not elite, with a net worth of only $4.2 million. (Hypocrisy is AWESOME!)

We have now a political party that is in charge of one half of the legislative branch (with no signs of losing control), may gain control of the other half and the executive in less than 2 months, and is absolutely fixated on a policy that has been shown to boost the few at the expense of the many.

Comments

Holy open and shut case Batman. Too bad you only had liberal publications supporting this argument like the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by the same company that owns Fox News. Otherwise, I’m sure it’d make some hay.